


Outside your door

by inverseR



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Inaccurate Ancient Greek Society, M/M, Medusa myth retelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 00:30:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21226808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inverseR/pseuds/inverseR
Summary: “Turns men into stone?” a man jeers, clearly deep in his cups. “In the temple of Athena! It’s some god’s whore, I bet! Imagine a woman pretty enough to turn men hard as stone with a glance!” His audience, equally inebriated, roars their approval. Aziraphale sips his wine and thinks.Recently, the braziers of the temple of Athena are always lit regardless of night or day. The fires burn brighter yet in colder times. Aziraphale wonders about that. Coupled with the fine dust in the temple of Athena, it seems like such a dangerous combination.





	Outside your door

The Greeks had been sufficiently frightened (some of them aroused) by this new monster they say inhabits the temple of Athena before Aziraphale decided to take action. While it wouldn’t have been much of Aziraphale’s fare, the forum he frequented did enjoy congregating at the steps of the temple of Athena. The new monster meant they gathered less often.   
“It roars and petrifies with a glance!” is what the rumours say. “The only warning you get before it strikes is when its scales drag against the ground. The temple of Athena is always dusty now because it destroys the men it turns into stone!”  
Aziraphale isn’t a man, and he is certainly more resistant against all that nasty dust. “Turns men into stone?” a man jeers, clearly deep in his cups. “In the temple of Athena! It’s some god’s whore, I bet! Imagine a woman pretty enough to turn men hard as stone with a glance!” His audience, equally inebriated, roars their approval. Aziraphale sips his wine and thinks.   
Recently, the braziers of the temple of Athena are always lit regardless of night or day. The fires burn brighter yet in colder times. Aziraphale wonders about that. Coupled with the fine dust in the temple of Athena, it seems like such a dangerous combination.   
“Hipponax went into the temple of Athena and hasn’t left and none of us here believe he will ever leave. The monster is real,” says the forum. “A servant girl seduced him into the temple of Athena with what is clear to us all now with malicious intent. We will hold a vigil for Hipponax’s death.”  
A low murmur ripples throughout the forum and when an announcement was made that the forum will not convene for a month, Aziraphale decides that he must do something about the situation.   
He passes by the temple of Athena often enough, scouting out the place. His sandals always come away with the soles too slippery with fine dust. He feels like he’s walking through molasses. There’s something about this place, the heat pouring out of the temple, the dust – it’s a powder keg waiting to explode, and the fact it is not indicates that there’s something.   
There’s something protecting the temple, fiercely.   
He finally gathers up enough curiosity and courage to brave the steps of the temple, and it’s even more palpable up close. There’s something here, as powerful as Aziraphale is with all his divine grace – possibly even more so. It winds itself around the pillars, reinforcing the architecture with layer upon layer of forceful will.   
Aziraphale does see the fabled statues. Men, all of them. Frozen in shock and stone. Frighteningly realistic with the mid-scream in the tension of their shoulders. Aziraphale breathes and despite the dry heat in the temple, his breath stirs up clouds of white dust.   
Inside the temple, natural light holds no domain. There is none of the sterile sunlight burning outside – just the ghostly crackle-pop-roar of the lit braziers. The crimson gold flames throw twisting shadows across the high ceilings of the temple and greedily burns away the little air in the room. Again, Aziraphale doesn’t understand the place. He doesn’t understand how with so much heat and fire and fine particulate dust the place does not explode. He doesn’t understand the fierce, frightful, powerful defense placed in a place so utterly devoid of life. So utterly incapable of life.   
\--ksssssshhhh   
Aziraphale doesn’t flinch at the sound but he is conscious of the moment he stops breathing and it is entirely caused by the sound. Last thing you hear is its scale dragging against the stone and dust. He stops where he stands and lets the sound come to him.   
Reminds himself that human hearts beat and he is no man. He is no human.   
Ba-THUMP. Ba-THUMP. Ba-THUMP.  
Something cold and dusty and scaly scrapes across his ankle and Aziraphale does not jump. He doesn’t. He stays perfectly still. He does however, swallow in a mouthful of ash-tasting air. After a moment, he hears hissing.   
The cold, scaly, dusty (so cold) thing winds itself around his ankle and slithers up his thigh and Aziraphale stays frozen where he is. He squeezes his eyes shut. Maybe this was a bad idea maybe this was a bad idea maybe this was a bad idea –   
“Asssiraphale?”  
He breathes all at once and when he opens his eyes, the dim temple is almost too bright.  
Crowley’s serpentine gold eyes are almost too bright, backlit by the brazier, Crowley’s pupils have expanded, and they look less threatening and more simply inquisitive.   
And it’s simply that Crowley has never come across as threatening in their serpent form to Aziraphale before, but that’s just between Aziraphale and himself. “Crowley?”  
“What are you doing here? I didn’t realissse you were in Greecce.”  
“The same could be said of you! How long have you been here?” Aziraphale puts two and two together. “Have you been turning all those men to stone?”  
Aziraphale isn’t proud of the scolding tone he adopts, especially given that Crowley seems almost sheepish. “I can explain!” Crowley hisses quickly, and Aziraphale is suddenly aware that Crowley is half-draped all over his back, solid and chilly over the fabric of his clothing.   
Aziraphale waits.   
Crowley hisses idly for a moment before they winds themselves around Aziraphale’s shoulder and neck, draping their tail across Aziraphale’s other arm. “That way,” Crowley points with their tail, Aziraphale follows their direction.   
He ends up in a garden the direct contrast of the powder-keg-uninhabitable temple. The garden seems to be a common centre for a sprawling mansion, branching off into other buildings and rooms. There are women bustling about, hurrying to chores and work and some of them are just strolling by, chatting idly.   
They stare oddly at Aziraphale. Something like worry and fear in their eyes.   
Aziraphale assumed it’s because of Crowley draped all over him.   
“When I got to Greece, I started to build a mansion. Base for sin and sloth and hedonism and all, you know. If you’re here we can discuss who gets where, and I don’t mind Athens that much, but you should probably do something about Sparta – anyway, the architect I hired apparently stole all of his work from this woman he keeps. So I tried to hire the woman instead. He said the woman was his daughter, and I said, never mind I’ll keep paying you, why don’t you sit back at home and let the woman do the work, and he said sure. And then the woman decided she never want to go back home and built herself an extra wing and everything and I said, well, you’ve got plenty of room now, if you can deal with yourself, might as well stay.  
“And I was new to Greece at the time, so when I said yes to the woman, and later the man came storming back to me accusing me of theft because apparently the woman was wedded and the man owns her so I am stealing his property, and I told him to get off my property and he said no and I said why don’t you make yourself useful if you’re staying and I turned him into a statue.”  
Aziraphale sits down under the shade of an apple tree and try not to gape too openly as a reaction to Crowley’s story. He was not expecting that. The other girl sitting under the tree reading scoots away from Aziraphale without looking up from her book.   
“I assume,” Aziraphale says, trying not to sound strangled and failing. He coughs a bit. “I assume all the women here have the same story?”  
“Last week I stopped a servant girl – a child. No older than thirteen years old or twelve, appeared in the temple. She was being chased by a drunk man and in all honesty, I can tell he wanted nothing good for her. So,” Crowley gestured in the direction of the temple with their tail.   
Aziraphale tries to consider the magnitude of the situation. Women, girls, intellectuals, servants, widowers, possibly elopers, or people running to escape marriage, all running here to seek sanctuary in this temple which Crowley apparently guards. Most, if not all, of them victims of some sort by the men in their lives.   
Aziraphale just stood in the forums, breathing with the men that abused their power, the trust given to them, that simply abused; he stood in the atrium of the temple, and breathe in said men. There are bits of cruel controlling father in his lungs, some particulate of negligent husband in his bronchioles.   
Aziraphale sits with his head in his hands and breathe just for a moment, grounding himself against the assuring weight of Crowley around his shoulder. “How many?” Aziraphale finds himself asking eventually.   
“I dunno, I stopped trying to count after thirty. At that point they just start appearing and doing whatever it is they do,” Crowley shrugs. A ripple of movement across his shoulders, cold scales soft. Aziraphale looks around the courtyard and tries to comprehend the situation. The forum doesn’t even have thirty talking members.   
“You can’t,” Crowley says urgently all of a sudden. “Angel, you can’t. These people feel safe here. You can’t expose them or take them away. This is the only place they feel safe. Let them be.”  
“I came because someone went missing into the temple,” Aziraphale answered. “They say a servant girl seduced him in. If you’re saying that the servant girl was a child, then the man has no business being seduced.”  
“Exactly!” Crowley thumps their tail against Aziraphale’s arm as emphases. “They’re safe here! All of them! And they’re being taken care of! I think, I believe so.”  
“Crowley,” Aziraphale says gently. “Crowley, my dear, do you understand what it means that you have a safe haven here for women to come to?”  
“Beyond that people should feel safe and can feel safe and et cetera?”  
“It means that outside there the men are disgusting and have been making women feel unsafe,” Aziraphale answers. “And that there’s little alternative for women and imagine, your mansion has limited property, and you’re harbouring more and more people everyday. How many more aren’t you protecting? How many more are suffering quietly?”  
Crowley is quiet and Aziraphale feels bad, all of a sudden. “What can we do?” Crowley asks quietly. Too quietly. “It seems to me, that the men out there need to think properly about their actions. So what can we do?”  
“Nothing,” Aziraphale says. “It’s ineffable.”  
Crowley jerks off of Aziraphale in a movement so violent that Aziraphale is sure he has bruises on his skin. They coil among the branches of his apple tree and hiss at Aziraphale aggressively. Aziraphale sits under the tree for a moment, but later a woman asks him to leave.   
It’s clear that the only reason Aziraphale was allowed as long as he was in the garden was because of Crowley’s approval of him. Aziraphale leaves the garden and steps out of the temple of Athena, much to the shock of several onlookers.   
Aziraphale leaves Athens and goes to Sparta instead, like Crowley suggested. And he sees the difference in how women are treated, in how women are honoured and have agency over their own household in Sparta simply because the men die more often and he wants to tell Crowley about it. “Maybe it’s not all ineffable,” he wants to say. “Maybe it’s something that can be helped.”  
The myth comes up that a man wearing winged slippers slayed a gorgon. Decapitated its serpent-haired head.   
The myth comes that the gorgon was named Medusa, protector.   
The myth comes back to reality and Aziraphale thinks of the faux-Eden Crowley made in Athens, and he thinks: maybe it’s not all ineffable.   
Maybe it’s like Eve in Eden – that it’s not something that any Ineffable Plan anywhere could have prevented. Maybe it never was ineffable at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr (absentsongfowl)


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